Cultural Exchange in Istanbul

September 30, 2005

Having just completed my first year as a PhD student at CMES with a concentration in Islamic visual and material culture, I decided to spend some of my first summer in Istanbul, Turkey. I had two goals in mind; one was to practice the Turkish I learned in Professor Karateke’s class. The other was to survey the libraries, museums, and monuments as pre-doctoral research. One of the best preparations I had for my trip was the trip to London this past Spring. Professor Roxburgh and Professor Necipoglu arranged for the doctoral students under their mentorship to visit the TURKS: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600 exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts. In fact, the exhibit created a preparatory dialogue with the monuments and objects I would see on my tour of Istanbul and the neighboring Ottoman cities: Bursa and Edirne.

I began my trip by registering for the Istanbul branch of TÖMER, which is the language institute run by Ankara University. I would highly recommend the program. I think its strength is that there are so many international students who do not speak English and the only language we had in common was Turkish. Therefore, I had many basic conversations with my classmates who were from France, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Palestine and Switzerland. One highlight of the class was my final exam. The student to my left was from Kazakhstan and he kept asking me with the proctor closely watching us for answers to some of the questions on the exam. During the break, I expressed that I was not comfortable cheating on my exam. It was then explained to me that in Kazakhstan a student is considered a capitalist if he/she does not cheat on the exam. The rationale was that I seemingly only cared about my personal success on the exam. Am I capitalist?
A culture shock I did not expect.

Having just recounted one of my many moments of cultural exchange while in Istanbul, I would like to share the other part of my trip which was nonverbal; the anticipation and exhilaration of visiting and visualizing the cityscapes and Ottoman museums and sites.

Military band

Military Museum Ottoman Military Band, Istanbul.


Bridge to Asia

The bridge to Asia, Istanbul.
 

Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Mosque

Sokollu Mehmed Pasa Mosque, Istanbul.
 

Selimiye Mosque

Selimiye Mosque, Edirne.
 

Yeşil Mosque & Yeşil Turba

Yeşil Mosque & Yeşil Turba with landscape background, Bursa.


Kariye Museum

Kariye Museum, Istanbul.


Mihrimah Sultan Mosque

Mihrimah Sultan Mosque, Istanbul.
 

Golden Horn

View of the Golden Horn, Istanbul.


Another view of the Golden Horn

Another view of the Golden Horn, Istanbul.


Yasmine Al-Saleh is a second year doctoral student in the CMES and Fine Arts program. Her academic advisers are Professor Gulru Necipoglu and Professor David Roxburgh.